Photo by John Griffiths
Despite continuing cleanup efforts, District residents shouldn’t be taking a dip in the Anacostia River for quite some time. The historically polluted waterway received an F on the Anacostia Watershed Society’s State of the Anacostia River 2016 Report Card (the same overall grade as last year). The organization doesn’t expect that people will be able to swim or fish in the river before 2025.
According to the report, improvements have been made over the last year in the categories of dissolved oxygen, submerged aquatic vegetation, toxics, and trash. However, small declines in scores for fecal bacteria, Chlorophyll a, and water clarity means that the river’s overall quality is leveling out.
Although those three areas have decreased slightly over the past year, they are trending toward longterm improvement, according to the report. The only factor that has recently declined and is noted as “degrading” long-term is stormwater runoff volume, an issue that the Clean River Project seeks to address. The DC Water plan consists of building massive tunnels, such as the First Street Tunnel, to assist the city’s century-old sewers during heavy storms, when polluted runoff dumps into the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers.
In 2011, a report released by advocacy group DC Appleseed called the Anacostia River “one of the most polluted waterways in the nation,” and suggested that cleaning it up would require the work of pretty much every jurisdiction you could imagine.
In early 2014, United for a Healthy Anacostia River emerged as a coalition of local environmental and business groups (including the Anacostia Watershed Society). The group’s main goal was to have planning completed and cleanup of toxic materials underway by January 2017.
And last year, as part of the D.C. Department of Environment’s Anacostia River Sediment Project, the agency hosted meetings to inform people about how the Anacostia and Potomac rivers get polluted and how they’re cleaning them up. “From innovative and rigorous programs to reduce stormwater runoff, to creative approaches for eliminating trash and litter, to responding to the legacy of industrial contamination in the Anacostia River, the District is putting in place the tools we need to ensure our waters are healthy, safe, and clean for future generations,” said DDOE Director Tommy Wells at the time.
In March, the agency released a more detailed report after collecting more than 900 samples of sediment, water, and tissue from the tidal portion of the Anacostia River, the Washington Channel, and Kingman Lake. The results are pretty much parallel to the watershed society’s findings.
The society acknowledges the work of its allies in the report, giving a grade of C for the overall effort and commitment of those working to clean up the Anacostia.
Meanwhile, earlier this year, the Potomac River received an overall health grade of B- from the Potomac Conservancy, which stated that its namesake river is “on its way to recovery.” The river’s last grade by the conservancy, nearly three years ago, was a C.
So if you’re planning on kayaking on the Anacostia River, don’t jump out of the boat.
